Militaries embracing green energy tech

Defense budgets are already bloated. In fact, the United States spends more on its military than the next 13 nations combined! How come? Well, energy costs for starters.

Yes, energy is contributing to the trillions of dollars taxpayers pump annually into armies, navies, and air forces. NATO and other Allied nations have identified the problem and are striving towards developing alternative energy projects in hopes of minimizing consumption.  

“All in all, in financial as well as security terms, our fuel dependency creates a ‘lose-lose’ situation,” claims Ambassador Gábor Iklódy, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. “The more one looks at this dilemma, the more one understands why Alexander the Great was so obsessed with logistics. He once said that if his campaign were to fail, the first people he would slay would be his logisticians.”

Our growing dependence on fossil fuels, unpredictable price points of raw goods, climate change, and threats from hackers make energy security a central concern.

The U.S Department of Defense spends roughly $20 billion a year on energy! $15 billion on fossil fuels, and another $5 billion on basic infrastructure, maintenance, and security. Aside from the cost, transporting large quantities of fuel risks the lives of our soldiers as well as our environment, should an accident, attack, or spill ever occur.

But what’s the alternative?

Commander Pasquale Tripodi, Head of the Propulsion Plants Office in Italy, claims some Allies are turning towards green energy tech, specifically biofuels “to reduce their dependency on fossil sources, mainly oil. The Italian Defense Forces, in particular the Navy, have decided to finance a project to certify the use of biofuel for the naval sector which is compatible with current equipment.”

The Italian Navy is currently testing biofuels comprised of algae, agricultural byproduct, and general waste. Their next-generation technology will be tested by powering a warship on nothing but biofuel later this year. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a uniform fuel for all armed forces.

Who will make the next big energy breakthrough?

In Canada, a project by the National Research Council is focusing on developing alternative fuel for the aviation sector. Back in October of 2012, they achieved the world’s very first flight powered 100% by biofuel. "[The] historic flight represents a breakthrough for the renewable fuels industry,” says Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Carter of the Canadian forces. “It symbolizes an important threshold, not just for aerospace, but also in the development of sustainable sources of renewable energy."

NRGLab has a strategic partnership with Viscoil Holdings (www.viscoil.com) on a project to recycle waste materials into eco-friendly diesel fuel. We’ve obtained an exclusive license from Viscoil to recycle raw materials across South East Asian. For example, in Malaysia, we’re currently recycling old engine oil into useable fuel. In Singapore, we’re able to recycle 2,000 tons of agricultural waste into 600-800 m3 of fuel every single day!

Our innovative gasification project processes rice husk, coal, natural gas, and agricultural byproduct into fuel at a lower operational cost than conventional gasification methods. This may very well be the solution for countries seeking clean, secure, and affordable sources of green-energy.

To learn more, visit nrglab.asia.com.

Cut energy consumption from your computer & phone!

Just imagine – you’re two minutes away from pulling into your driveway after a long day at work. You reach into your pocket and pull out a smartphone. Click. Click. By the time you’re standing at your front door, the porch lights are on. Inside, the air conditioning is at just the right temperature. Even the TV is set to your favorite channel.

No, this isn’t science fiction. It’s Canadian!

Valta, a Toronto-based startup company, is looking towards the Internet to help fund their new energy-management technology. Combining an innovative outlet attachment with a central hub, an iPhone app, and a monitoring website, Valta’s technology promises to help homeowners tame energy wasting appliances with just a few clicks.

The outlet attachments feature built-in microchips that detect inactive energy guzzlers. Those chips can then send a text message alert to your phone, allowing you to turn the socket off completely!

You can also view which of your home’s appliances are in “standby” mode, which means they continue to sap electricity without actively being in use.

The technology utilizes a geofence to shut appliances off as soon as you leave the house, and then turn them back on as soon as you return. So even if you forgot to reach for your phone on the car ride home, don’t worry!

If you’re one of those people who likes to plan everything down to the smallest detail, you can schedule power on and offs, like turning on your entertainment system, fan, computer, or home office.

Valta’s technology can even track your energy consumption so you can see how your habits have evolved over time. Because energy consciousness has never been more important! Sure, it’s easy to forget about that lamp on in the other room. It’s easy to let the water run a little longer than need be. What’s difficult is changing our habits. Learning. Improving.

If we don’t improve as a society, and quickly, we’ll be left with one mess of a planet. Thankfully, companies like NRGLab and Valta are taking a stance and doing something about it.

 
Valta has the experience in cloud-network computer programming, iOS, hardware and electrical engineering.  All they need now is money. The company has turned to Kickstarter, the highly-successful crowd-based funding site, for $100,000 to get the gears turning.

Interested in pre-ordering Valta’s technology? The v-Hub and three sockets will run you $139 (about 55$ less than projected retail this Fall). Check out their Kickstarter campaign here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/671204280/valta-energy-usage-simplified

The things in life we take for granted

Imagine living in Honduras. The streets are cluttered with uncollected garbage. Diseases like malaria run rampant. In fact, your next door neighbor just died of a mosquito bite. Every so often, you have to hike to a fresh water supply miles away. Electricity? Not a chance. Traffic accidents are solved by quick cash exchanges because the police couldn’t care less. Children can’t get to school because the only bridge out of the village just collapsed. And the storms! Lackluster government warnings result in thousands of people losing their homes on a semi-regular basis.

Now stop imagining.

 

Remember that you are you. You’re a citizen of the first world. You live in an apartment, house or condo. Trash day is every Thursday. If you get sick, you take a trip to your doctor, who writes you a prescription and that’s that. Your next door neighbor hasn’t returned your leaf blower in months. He might be a deadbeat, but he’s definitely not dead. Tap water? Ew. Gross. You only drink bottled, or water that’s been through a Britta filter. You complain when your Smartphone doesn’t keep its charge. The police seem to be lurking behind every blind spot along the highway, waiting to catch you going 5 mph over the speed limit. A big yellow bus picks your son or daughter up for school every morning. And storms usually knock out the cable, but not much else.

Oh, the things in life we in the developed world take for granted!

The Earth is a big, big place, and the sooner people come to this conclusion, the sooner we can begin to address global issues. 

More often than not, politics get tangled up in subcommittees. Narrow-mindedness and personal vendettas result in nothing getting done. Sure, everyone wants to pay lower taxes. Everyone wants better schools and smoother roads. But aren’t these issues trivial compared to spreading equality and ensuring basic human rights throughout the world? 

Liberals and conservatives have their philosophical differences, but surely there are some things everyone can agree upon. We want to protect our children and afford them every opportunity to succeed. We want to feel safe in our own homes. We want to watch our children grow up, and their children, and their children after that.

 

NRGLab hasn’t forgotten the little things in life. That’s why we want to bring sustainable clean energy to the developing world. We believe that if you were born in Honduras, you should have the same opportunities as if you had been born in the United States. With the SH-Box, a low-cost, zero-emissions generator, EVERYONE can have access to reliable power. And that’s only the beginning. 

We have the ability to make the world a better place. First, we need to appreciate the things in life we take for granted. Then, and only then, will our leaders feel truly compelled to put aside politics and work towards world peace.

Be happy, people. Be happy and good to one another. 

Regionalization & the electric car: facts, or fictions?

The economic crisis has broken all of the rules developed countries play by on the global market. As a result, the world is undergoing a reverse process of globalization called “regionalization.” A United States intelligence agency recently identified regionalization as a potential threat to the country’s stronghold on global markets. (http://gt2030.com). The emergence of new financial and industrial centers in developing countries is expected to rattle the status quo.

“We do not expect global growth to be much higher this year than last,” said Christine Lagarde, Head of the International Monitory Fund, who voiced her concerns on the real economy. Although business and industry is flocking to the third world, the local population hasn’t benefited, financially or by any other means. “In far too many countries,” said Lagarde, “Improvements in financial markets have not translated into improvements in the real economy—and in the lives of people.” (Economic Club of New York, New York, April 10, 2013).

We can delay regionalization by embracing revolutionary breakthroughs in science and technology like high-quality renewable energy and low-cost cargo output to Low Earth Orbit. These kinds of breakthroughs not only excite the public and ignite the imaginations of millions, they also add real value to bubbles in banking and manufacturing markets.

Sadly, we simply do not have these miraculous new technologies available today. What we do have, however, is an abundance of ambition in the automotive industry. American car companies were hit especially hard by 2008’s economic collapse. Now they’re looking to revive the market and raise quotes again. How? By tantalizing the public with promises of eco-friendly, cost-efficient, high-capacity batteries. Every year there’s another dozen commercials for the latest innovation in hybrid technology, or a new electric car that promises you’ll only have to stop for gas once a month!

But, as the past several decades have demonstrated, these “innovations” weren’t ready for mass production. They were merely marketing ploys – a way of getting the public to trust the automakers again after a pattern of gross mismanagement in the years preceding the financial crisis. Electric vehicles will never gain market share with a limited battery range and limited infrastructure of charging stations in place.

The automotive market has become saturated with hybrid vehicles. All the while, car companies have shifted focus away from concept designs and the production of prototypes. Instead of thinking long-term about staying competitive on a global scale, they’ve settled for temporarily satisfying the public’s soft-spot for cross-overs.

Following the economic crisis, most of the top managers in the western auto industry faced a dilemma: they could either file for bankruptcy, or come up with a PR-trick claiming to have made another technological breakthrough. The latter would distract investors from their ineptitude while earning government subsidies at the same time. Not a bad alternative to bankruptcy.
 
After 2008, investors and regulators began to closely monitor and trace the potential for financial bubbles in the industry. Sounds easy, but in fact it’s quite a difficult task in a real economy. Outsourcing makes it challenging for private and corporate investors to accurately analyze and predict how technical components will pan out on the market.

So where does all of this leave the electric car? Should we expect to see another PR campaign on TV? Indeed, we’re being told of a possible breakthrough relating to the incorporation of an isotropic polycrystalline generators (SH-boxes), which convert electricity from environmental heat, into a line of zero-emission vehicles. NRGLab PTE Ltd., based out of Singapore, was the first to generate energy via polycrystals in an anisotropic media with a thermoelectric merit figure of 0.8 (ZT). The resulting electrical capacity exceeded that of thermoelectric converters based on carbon nanotubes (0.02 ZT).

Let’s hope this technological breakthrough will add some REAL value to the real economy for once.

Can't afford another spill

As we approach the 24^th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, we must ask ourselves: have we done enough to protect our oceans and beaches from this filthy substance?

According to Art Sterritt, Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations, we haven’t. He summarized the CFN’s position on oil tanker traffic along the coast and the potentially disastrous effect a spill would have on the region’s ecosystem and communities: “If you transpose the geographic area affected by the Valdez spill onto the area tankers would travel down the west coast, a spill could theoretically stretch from Prince Rupert (Canada) to Vancouver (Roughly 1,500 kilometers).”

The Exxon Valdez spill occurred on March 24, 1989. Up to 750,000 barrels of crude oil poured into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Alaska, the remote location of which made response efforts that much more difficult. Roughly 11 million gallons of oil went on to cover 2,100 km of coastline, and 28,000 square km of ocean.

This had been the largest ecological disaster in American waters, until the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident. Following an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, an opening in the sea-floor gushed oil unabated for three whole months! That pumped an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the gulf, poisoning hundreds of thousands of marine and coastal wildlife.

But what if these risky long-distance tanker runs and off-shore oil rigs were no longer necessary? We could save millions of dollars in disaster relief. We could save millions of lives. If only energy production was made accessible to the public, freeing them from the big oil companies who’d have no choice but to cut-back on operational costs, including transportation.

That’s part of the reason why NRGLab created the SH-box. Semi-conductive, thermo-generating technology is contained within a small case producing electricity for $0.03 per kW, which is four times less expensive than current rates. Better yet, the battery has a shelf-life of 20 years! That means the SH-box is there and ready whenever you need it.

The box itself is comprised of relatively inexpensive materials, like rare-earth elements and metal oxides, making the box affordable to a wide demographic. By introducing it to market, NRGLab hopes the SH-box will lay a devastating blow to big oil. How many spills is it going to take? How many millions of gallons of water and miles of coastline must mankind destroy before we say, “Enough is enough,” and do away with these bulky, ticking-time bombs they call oil tankers and rigs?

Out with the old, and cumbersome. In with the new, and all-natural. In with the SH-box.  

Future Waterworld features new trade routes: no Kevin Costner

As the ice caps continue to  melt, new trade routes through the arctic are expected to open by mid-Century, increasing trade between the United States and Asia. Sure, we may be forced to live in Waterworld, where pirates run amok in a Kevin Costner-less future, but hey -- at least the economy will see a boost.

For hundreds of millions of years, the Arctic has been an impenetrable sheath of ice, forcing seafarers to navigate around the obstacle through man-made canals. Currently, trade between the U.S. and Asia runs primarily through the Suez and Panama canals; but as the planet continues to warm, the Northwest passage could become the next most-viable trade route. Hear that, Canada? With your meteor defense system and this added economic leverage -- you're on the verge of becoming the next superpower.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Plus, man may soon be able to pass directly over the North Pole for the first time in Earth's history. Due to the albeido effect, where in which reflective light-colored ice is replaced by murky sun-absorbing water, the more the ice melts, the hotter the planet gets; becoming a viscous, downward spiral ending in the Apocalypse.

So, global warming is growing exponentially, and moderate energy policies aren't doing enough to address the seriousness of this fact. Last fall, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center recorded the level of Arctic ice at an historic low. Now, scientists are scrambling to try and predict the consequences of heightened sea levels.

According to Laurence Smith, a geography professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, "The (Arctic) distances are vast. The landscape is boggy and wet and covered with lakes. What you see is a shutdown of human access on land and an increase of human access in the ocean."

Ships capable of plowing through an estimated four-feet of ice will be able to make the 'over-the-globe' trip by 2050. This new route will save ships 30% of current travel times through the Northern Sea Route.

It's nice to try and paint a silver lining on global warming. I joke about Waterworld and amphibious adaptations, but really -- melting ice caps shouldn't be seen as a positive thing. Although offering temporary economic perks, new sea routes are but a glimpse of a bitter long-term reality. The water is rising. The question is, when will our ancestors have to build themselves houseboats?

Besides, there are other ways to boost the economy! Like investing in clean-energy. Developing new strategies through collaboration. We don't have to simply accept our dismal fate. We have the ability to change the world. It starts with slowing global warming by cutting down on fossil fuel consumption. And how can we do that without descending into chaos?

Visit the NRGLab homepage at http://nrglab.asia/ to learn more about how the SH-box is the answer.

Carbon out of control

According to a study published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), carbon emissions have increased by nearly three-million ppm (parts per million) since this time last year -- the second largest spike in over fifty years.  'Parts per million' equates to the number of carbon particles relative to oxygen in the atmosphere -- meaning the air we breathe is slowly becoming less breathable.

"So what?" you ask. "It's just air..."

Well, the increase also means "the prospects of keeping climate change below that 1.9-degree goal are fading away," said Pieter Tans, one NOAA's scientists, who operates out of their Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory. Current levels are 41% higher than the pre-industrial period. Since then, the global temperature has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius.

John Reilly, co-director of the Science and Policy of Global Change, estimates that temperatures will rise another 1.3 and 2.3 degrees Celsius between now and 2050. Were will the world be then?

Food production will become unstable because of unpredictable weather patterns. Super-storms will cease to be 'super' -- they'll be the norm. The oceans will rise. More UV rays will pierce the atmosphere, meaning more cases of skin cancer. High insurance rates. Leading to medical reform. And higher taxes.

The effects of global warming stretch far beyond the environment, which should concern people in the first place. But for those out there who have trouble looking twenty-five, fifty years into the future, just ask yourself why your energy bills and taxes have steadily increased during the same period the Earth has gotten warmer.

Everything is connected. This isn't just a philosophical principle: it's an aspect of our everyday lives. We've identified the source of this spike in carbon emissions: fossil fuels. However, as sophisticated countries like Singapore and Germany work towards alternative energy sources, addressing consumption concerns, developing countries, in a struggle to play catch-up with the rest of the world, are burning more oil than ever.

Again (and not to stress the point too far), but the climate crisis we're currently faced with can't be solved by any one nation. It's going to require a collaborative effort -- public, private, and federal partnerships coming together to face the harsh reality of what reckless oil consumption has done to our world.

By introducing the SH-box to market, NRGLab aims to bring global warming to a stand-still. Keeping the increase below 1.9 degrees Celsius will allow the world to focus on solving many of the other fundamental problems facing us today. Like war. Religious intolerance. Educational reform. Global warming is only the beginning.

Big Apple hosts redesign competition

New York City, also known as the 'Big Apple', one of the greatest cities on Earth, is proving the perfect example of how government can engage its citizens in order to re-imagine the world we live in. The Reinvent Payphone Challenge, hosted by Quirky, an industrial design firm located out of New York, asked contests to rethink the design of thousands of outdated, dilapidated payphones currently plaguing the city. In fact, there are roughly 11,000 public payphones throughout New York's five boroughs, and anyone who's ever visited the city knows that most of those have been reduced to germ-infested piss-booths. Let's face it -- in the age of smartphones, who uses a payphone anymore?

They've gone the way of the beeper, some say. Yet the eleven finalists of the Reinvent Challenge beg to differ. Crowds gathered last night to listen to some truly tremendous visions for the future. From straight-out-of-Star-Wars ideas like a kinetic sidewalk that harvests energy from everyday foot-traffic, to more advanced versions of the iPad, the event oozed creativity and ambition.

According to Citywide Chief Information and Innovation Officer Rahul Merchant, the eleven finalists were chosen from more than 120 submissions. "It was hard to get it down to 11," he said. "The ideas were phenomenal and so full of innovation."

The most shared trait among the 'payphones of tomorrow' was a large touch-screen, which featured information for businesses and offered directional help. But who knows how far these ideas will go. "The ideas we got from tonight will be incorporated with research we’ve done prior to the design challenge," said Merchant, who went on to add: "This is New York City. We set global standards. The way we do that is to get the best ideas from everybody’s minds.”

He's got that right. Now, if only governments and corporations across the globe were as willing to tap into our greatest natural resource -- the minds of our people! -- to identify current problems and help come up with creative solutions. What a world we might live in...

Of course, the conservative minded-reader immediately asks, "But how is the city planning on funding these 'payphones of tomorrow', with their fancy screens and whatnot? Sure, idealism is nice, but there's always a price tag."

The project is being funded by public and private partnerships (with advertisers pitching in just a bit of course... who doesn't want to see a McDonald's symbol pop up on their payphone touchscreen?), so the city of New York won't end up spending a single tax dollar to revamp their infrastructure. Hear that? Not a single tax dollar!

What Quirky has done for payphones, NRGLab has done for electricity production. Now all it takes is implementation -- taking that next step. We've identified the problems facing climate change. There's too much carbon in the atmosphere. The icecaps are melting too quickly. We rely too much on fossil fuels. We consume way, way too much. Are we going to stand idly by as we let the world turn into a New York city phone booth? Or are we finally willing to accept the fact that it's time to come together as a community, a nation, a planet, and solve these issues together?

To check out the eleven finalists in The Reinvent Payphone Challenge, visit NYC.gov's Facebook page. For more information on NRGLab, visit http://nrglab.asia/

Big business addresses climate change?

Late last week, the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) gave their recommendations to President Obama regarding climate change. According to the BCSE, investing in green-energy will not only stimulate the tech industry, but could pull the entire economy out of the hole Americans currently find themselves in. Thank goodness for the sequester then, which, if left unresolved, will result in billions of federal spending cuts, leaving little to no room for green-energy investing. Hooray, for split Congresses.

In a letter from the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) “the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing.” The Task Force requested suggestions on how federal agencies could cut down on their carbon emissions. In reply, the BCSE released a factbook entitled 'Sustainable Energy in America', in which they identified economic-based legislation as the “optimal policy.” They also recommended the following measures:

1. Allow existing power plants to achieve target emission rates.

2. Use an output-based approach to setting emissions standards for New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) of greenhouse gases.

3. The Department of Energy should implement efficiency measures, including appliance and equipment standards, manufactured housing efficiency standards, and previously announced programs for commercial buildings.

4.The federal government should follow through on commitments made in the White House Executive Order 13514, including making greater use of federal performance contracting, aggregating procurements within federal agencies, between federal agencies, and leveraged with state and local government procurements, and clarify that Combined Heat and Power (CHP) qualifies under this executive order.

5.Federal agencies should support efforts to strengthen the smart grid, especially distributed generation at disaster centers, hospitals, etc., and should implement and update climate change adaptation plans to improve resilience.

6.Congress should continue to support research, development and deployment of homegrown and clean energy sources.

These actions could significantly cut into America's carbon emissions, and would set a positive example for the rest of the world to follow. As previously quoted, “the window to prevent catastrophic climate change is rapidly closing.” We have passed the development period. It' time for implementation. It's time for change. It's time for the SH-box and other innovative green initiatives to finally get the recognition, and the funding, they deserve and need to save the world.

Here comes... Canada to the rescue?

After the Russian meteor scare last week, many wondered why governments around the world seemed surprised and unprepared for the 10,000 ton death-rock hurling towards us. According to NASA scientists, the explosion in our atmosphere was the “equivalent to nearly 500,000 tons of TNT.”

But don’t worry. One country has come to the rescue. Drum roll, please for…

Canada?

After today’s launch of the Indian Polar Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV), four Canadian satellites, including the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), will begin monitoring the skies for potential meteoric threats.

That’s right. Asteroid mining out of Canada. The Canadians have Bruce Willis and the team from Armageddon. Who could have foreseen that coming?

NEOSSat will be the first space telescope dedicated solely to finding Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) in our solar system. Unlike Earth-based, man-monitored telescopes, NEOSSat will operate 24/7, capturing hundreds of more images per day for analysis.

NEOSSat is tiny — only the size of a suitcase — and runs off of multi-band gap solar panels. It was launched into orbit 800 kilometers above the Earth, and represents our first line of defense against total annihilation.

I guess someone was listening when we said there were no more hero’s in today’s world. Continue proving us wrong, Canada.